Kyle Shurmur awaits rare chance to wow Giants brass and familiar face

INDIANAPOLIS — When Kyle Shurmur throws at this week’s NFL Combine, there is one talent evaluator the Vanderbilt quarterback should impress easily, or make proud at the very least:

His dad.

Advertisement

Kyle is the son of Giants head coach Pat Shurmur, so in a special but unusual arrangement for the family, Kyle will throw inside the Colts’ Lucas Oil Stadium while his father observes from a suite. Pat and the Giants even could interview Kyle this week, not to mention draft him in April.

Kyle says there is no extra pressure and insists that the Shurmurs know how to compartmentalize and stay focused.

“My dad’s got a job to do, which is do what he can to help the Giants win games and lead them to a Super Bowl,” Kyle Shurmur told the Daily News on the phone this Saturday. “And my job’s to do my best and show teams I can positively contribute. But it’ll definitely be cool seeing my dad there.

“Every once in a while he’ll give me a pointer or two, but he’s gotta act in best of the New York Giants,” Kyle added. “He’s not out there trying to help his son — he’s got a job to do with the Giants. But it is a unique situation, and it’s cool.”

“He’s not out there trying to help his son — he’s got a job to do with the Giants."

Kyle Shurmur

Share quote & link

Unique doesn’t even begin to describe how rare this is, however, for a son to compete at the NFL Combine while his father is a head coach or a GM in the league.

The Daily News could identify only four such examples in the last 35 years, even with the help of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Still, believe it or not, there is an instructive story for the Shurmurs that hits closer to home than they would have ever imagined.

In a crazy coincidence, it is believed that the last quarterback to enter the NFL while his father was a head coach was Mike Shula, Pat Shurmur’s offensive coordinator with the Giants.

And Shula’s father, legendary Hall of Famer Don Shula, did not draft the Alabama QB to the Miami Dolphins in 1987. But Mike does have fond memories of that spring, despite contracting chicken pox at the Japan Bowl the week ahead of the Senior Bowl.

He says Don took him to a Pacers-Celtics game one night during the combine. And he even says his father played a role in his 12th round selection by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“It was definitely exciting,” Mike Shula said in an interview Monday. “And actually I had a special week (at) the Senior Bowl. Due to some coaching staffs being fired, they were looking for a new staff to coach the Senior Bowl, so they asked the Dolphins to coach. So my dad and his staff -- with my brother (Dave) being on it as (an assistant) -- coached the South team. So that was a really neat week … We had a great week and won the game in a pouring rain in Mobile, Ala.”

Advertisement

The draft? Well, that wasn’t as fun. Shula is asked if he ever has talked to his father about the Dolphins not drafting him, and he says: “Oh, in more ways than one.” But who can imagine the pressure and awkwardness of such a situation? And in truth his dad did get involved, after all.

“(My father and I) actually discussed it on draft day,” Shula says. “Back then, the draft was 12 rounds, and it was all in one day. So it started at like 7 in the morning and ended usually after midnight. The first couple quarterbacks had been taken pretty early, so I actually thought I was going to be drafted around -- I don’t know -- the seventh round or something.

“But by the time the 12th round came, I was pretty disappointed and knew that really nobody was going to draft me,” he continued. “And then I got two calls: one from my dad, and one from Coach (Ray) Perkins, my college coach who had just taken the Buccaneers job. So they had gone back and forth on who was gonna draft me -- I think there was like a three-way conversation -- or if I just wanted to become a free agent.”

Perkins and the Buccaneers took him with the 313th pick, and Shula remains extremely “grateful” for the “opportunity,” He played one year before becoming a Buccaneers offensive assistant, following his father into a career coaching.

Kyle Shurmur is projected to be a mid-to-late round pick in the coming NFL draft. (Mark Humphrey / AP)

Fast-forward to 2019, and now it’s another SEC quarterback, Kyle Shurmur, feeling “grateful” for his opportunity but also determined to demonstrate he can make it in the NFL.

He and his dad have kept their itineraries “independent” for what Kyle maturely calls his “professional interview,” outside of a weekly phone call when Pat has lent support or listened.

Kyle has been training with former NFL and NCAA coach Buddy Geis at Exos Sports in Pensacola, Fla., in a group of about 30 prospects. He is flying into Indianapolis direct from Florida and said he didn’t even know when his dad was scheduled to land himself.

“Similar to college, my dad’s sort of taken a back seat, knowing I’ve got good coaching here,” Kyle said of Pat Shurmur, who plans to address the topic here in Indianapolis on Wednesday.

Intriguingly, though, Kyle’s agent is Tom Condon, the same man who represents Eli Manning. And his dad of course is the Giants’ coach. So it all begs an important question: Does Kyle want to play for his dad, who has never coached a team of his in football before?

“I just wanna go to any team where they feel I have the ability to positively contribute to the team,” he says. “And I want to go to a place where I get an opportunity to compete and positively contribute in any way. Any team would be a blessing and a great opportunity.

“It would be a different situation sort of if my dad were the coach,” Kyle Shurmur says with a laugh, “but it is what it is.”